Did you know?

The IEC develops international standards for switchgear. South Africa though has developed its own standard for circuit breakers which is 95% similar to IEC standards but with an important difference. IEC mandates that circuit breakers should be able to operate at 230 volts +/-5% but the South African requirement is 230 volts +/- 10%. Most circuit breakers on the world market cannot meet the South African standard, and are more expensive for those countries that do make them (e.g. Siemens). This affords some protection to the South African industry.

I thought circuit breakers measured amperage, not voltage, which is why they can operate at either 120v or 240v, or any other voltage that does not create an over load. If voltage caused a problem they would be tripping all over the place when the utilities face a brown out.

The IEC develops international standards for switchgear. South Africa though has developed its own standard for circuit breakers which is 95% similar to IEC standards but with an important difference. IEC mandates that circuit breakers should be able to operate at 230 volts +/-5% but the South African requirement is 230 volts +/- 10%. Most circuit breakers on the world market cannot meet the South African standard, and are more expensive for those countries that do make them (e.g. Siemens). This affords some protection to the South African industry.

As the voltage drops, the current increases, so the latching and tripping characteristics need to handle a wider range; this would require a different design with different ranges or you'd get false tripping (well, really it would be still valid, but a nuisance for a transient).

When I lived in Jordan, the voltage would vary +/- probably 50vac, and it made it really tough on any appliances...refrigerator compressors just didn't like it! I had a motor driven variac on my computer, and at certain times, you could hear that ajusting all over the place. This was before UPS devices were readily available and reasonably priced. The PS in the TV could handle it, but some other stuff had problems as well.